quo; nay, I am told by the ladies here that it is much mended by the operation, which I confess I cannot perceive in my looking-glass."
On the 6th of June, 1718, she left Constantinople with regret. And at this I do not wonder, for there was in her character a coarse sensual bent, closely approximating to the oriental cast of mind, which in a wild unpoliced capital, where, according to her own account, women live in a state of perpetual masquerade, might still more easily be yielded to even than in London. Of study and the sciences she had by this time grown tired. She regretted that her youth had been spent in the acquisition of knowledge. The Turks, who consumed their lives "in music, gardens, wine, and delicate eating," appeared upon the whole much wiser than the English, who tormented their brains with some scheme of politics, I use her own words, or in studying some science to which they could never attain. "Considering what short-lived weak animals men are," she adds, "is there any study so beneficial as the study of present pleasure?" And lest any one should mistake her after all, she subjoins, "but I allow you to laugh at me for my sensual declaration in saying that I had rather be a rich effendi with all his ignorance, than Sir Isaac Newton with all his knowledge." No doubt; and Lais, Cleopatra, or Ninon would have said the same thing.
Sailing down the Dardanelles, they cast anchor between the castles of Sestos and Abydos, where,
In the month of cold December,
Leander, daring boy, was wont,—
What maid will not the tale remember?—
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!
Here she enjoyed a full view of Mount Ida,
Where Juno once caressed her amorous Jove,
And the world's master lay subdued by love.
